I thank the Deputy. I have to say that when I was appointed Minister for Social Protection, I did not think a lot of my time would be spent on school meals. It is one of the most popular programmes and most debated in the House. That is a good thing and we want to get it right. In 2019, there were 37 schools and 6,600 children who were eligible for hot school meals. Today, all 3,200 primary schools and 550,000 children are eligible for hot school meals. There are 3,700 schools around the country which are eligible for the full supports; meaning 3.4 million school meals per week, delivered by more than 300 suppliers, including community-based suppliers. Deputy O’Reilly has championed the role of meals on wheels. Overall, I welcome the Deputy’s support for the success of the programme but we have more to do and we will continue to strive for improvements. The budget for any hot school meals programme this year is €289 million. To assist in improving the programme, my Department has established an inter-departmental working group, including the Department of Health, the Department of Education and Youth, the Food Safety Authority and the Department of children, to oversee and make recommendations. Last year, I instructed suppliers to remove fats that are high in saturated fat, sugar and salt. Previously they had been permitted once a week and only when chosen by parents. We have also seconded a CORU-registered dietitian, funded by my Department, for the school meals programme. She is under the clinical supervision of the Department of Health and is undertaking an in-depth review of school meals supplier menus and their compliance to nutritional standards. We also last year launched the summer holiday hunger initiative, which supported 42,000 children. I am very focused on the nutritional standards of the hot school meals. There are 16 different standards and we will get a chance to discuss the full details of those during supplementary questions.
Sentiment score: 0.26
The dietician has been working since September and she has completed an in-depth review of school meal supplier menus and their compliance with nutritional standards. The nutritional standards have been in place since 2019, since the inception of the programme. They were developed by the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute, the HSE, Safefood and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. There are 16 standards in total - 13 relating to food and three relating to drinks. The interim report is based effectively on desktop, so we are now beginning, with colleagues from the Department of Social Protection, the process of getting into schools and looking at what is being delivered. The main findings of that interim report, which were based predominantly on looking at menus, is that at least 66% met at least three of the five standards looked at in the initial look. Some 80% contained adequate carbohydrates that did not include foods high in fat, salt and sugar. One of the issues is around fruit and vegetables and how available they are. That was very hard to decipher from the menu. We will have the full report by the summer and I look forward to discussing it. In regard to our role as a Department, we are also developing an inspection tool. We are getting into schools. We did 400 school inspections last year and another 100 desktop inspections.
Sentiment score: 0.07
I assure Deputy Hayes that the nutrition side is being closely monitored. Coming back to the overall discussion about suppliers, my preference is for local suppliers. That could be meals on wheels. Deputy O'Shea is with us. The Duhallow community food project is also a very good model. It is locally produced. This day last week, I was in St. Munchin's Community Centre in Limerick, where they do extraordinary work. We saw the food being prepared there. I do not mind whether it is private or public. I think it should be local and, most importantly, nutritious. With our dietitian, we are developing a tool to allow us to do more audits, to actually get into schools and to see what is being served, because what is on a menu may be different from what is being served. The contract is with the school, which does the contract with companies. I pay tribute to the Department of education and the school meals unit of my own Department. They work incredibly hard and give guidance and support. The contractual relationship is between the school and the supplier, which is important. I make the point to Deputy O'Reilly that I hope, once we finalise the report of our dietitian, to engage with organisations based on having her report and analysis of the potential. As I said, I am open to anything as long as it provides nutrition, but my personal preference is for local.
Sentiment score: 0.16
I thank Deputy O'Shea for his question. The total number of recipients of jobseeker's payments has remained generally steady over the last 12 months in both Cork and Limerick. In Cork, it varied between 11,700 and 13,700 over the year, while in Limerick, it varied between 5,200 and 6,000. At the end of January 2026, in Cork, there were approximately 12,100 recipients of jobseeker's payments. Figures were broadly the same in January 2025, with around 12,100 recipients. In Limerick, there were 5,800 recipients of jobseeker's payments in January 2026. In January 2025, there were 5,300 recipients of jobseeker's payments. Regarding the specific areas the Deputy mentioned, the CSO publishes breakdowns of the live register by office each month. In January 2026, there were approximately 2,700 people on the live register in the Mallow, Newmarket, Macroom, and Kilmallock areas. This is comparable to 2025, when there were also 2,700 people on the live register. I will arrange for detailed tables of recipient and live register numbers to be sent to the Deputy. The public employment service, Intreo's employer relations team, offers a wide range of locally based services to assist employers, including engaging directly to assist with recruitment activities, and by hosting local recruitment events that connect employers to jobseekers through a mix of in-person events and online webinars. During 2025, Intreo employer relations hosted 12 recruitment events and careers fairs in Charleville, Mallow, Millstreet and Fermoy, at which there were a wide range of supports on offer in further education, training, upskilling, work placements, programmes such as the work placement experience programme, community employment and Tús, to support people to obtain or retain employment.
Sentiment score: 0.11
I thank the Deputy and join him in acknowledging the superb work being done by our Intreo teams across the country. We will have work and skills events around the country next week. I encourage every Deputy to help to promote those events and to attend the events to see how they work. We are more than happy to show them. We have already had a good discussion this morning about youth employment and the work we are doing with Intreo, and the tailored, individualised employment support that Intreo provides. As the Deputy knows, with the youth guarantee of the European Union, we are pledging to provide a good quality offer of employment, education or training to those under 30 within four months of them becoming unemployed. We are focused on delivering that. We are focused on identifying appropriate training opportunities for young people. I thank the Deputy and Senator Anne Rabbitte for their engagement with me around redesigning community employment, Tús and the rural social scheme, RSS, to ensure that they offer opportunities to people. As I said earlier, we are currently finalising a new draft of pathways to work. That will look at all the labour market challenges we face, because our biggest enemy is complacency, and we must ensure that our labour market and supports are relevant to the conditions in the market today.
Sentiment score: 0.51
We will continue to work on activation. I am focused on targeted activation. It is important that we give people the opportunity to remain connected and qualified for the labour market. It is something I am very focused on doing, and I thank our Intreo colleagues. In relation to the branch office managers, as the Deputy knows, we have 55 social welfare branch offices at various locations, including 24 in the southern region, 11 in the northern region, 17 in the midlands and west region and three in the eastern region. We have received correspondence, and we are engaging with the branch manager representative groups in relation to a review of their remuneration arrangements. My officials are engaging around that. We will be engaging with the Department of Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation, and we will have further engagement with the Branch Managers Association in relation to those outcomes. Quite a number of Deputies have been in touch with me in recent days about this. We are very focused on it. I very much appreciate the fantastic work they do.
Sentiment score: 0.39
I thank Deputy McGrath for raising this issue. As he knows, the primary weekly social welfare payments are intended to enable recipients to meet basic day-to-day income needs. In addition to those primary payments, we also provide a range of other payments that are considered secondary in nature. The living alone allowance is one of those secondary payments. It is not a scheme or stand-alone payment but rather a supplement to certain primary social protection payments for those who are in receipt of those payments and who are living alone. The current rate of living alone allowance is €22 per week. It has increased by over 144% since 2019, when it was just €9 per week. The majority of the recipients of the living alone allowance are those who are over 66 and who are getting a pension from our Department. The living alone allowance is also available to those who are under 66 who live alone and who are getting disability allowance, the invalidity pension, the incapacity supplement or the blind pension. The rate of primary and secondary payments to pensioners, and their adequacy, are considered in the context of the annual budgetary process. In doing so, the Government considers evidence from a wide range of sources, including agencies such as the Central Statistics Office, CSO, and also research submitted by advocacy groups around this. The data shows the cost of living for a single person is more than the individualised cost of two people living together, as the Deputy said. For this reason, the living alone allowance is available to those in receipt of qualifying payments. Any future changes to the rate of payment for the living alone allowance would have to be considered in the overall budgetary context. We are not yet in budgetary season but, certainly, it is an area that many Deputies, including Deputy McGrath, have raised with me. However, it will have to be looked at in the context of the overall budgetary envelope that is available to us in 2027.
Sentiment score: -0.05
We are certainly conscious from our day-to-day experience with our own families, but also from our constituencies, that the cost and the cliff for those living alone, particularly those who have suffered bereavement or separation, is particularly tight. We are very conscious of that. That is why there has been such a big increase in it since 2019. I also want to ensure that people are aware there are other supports available that they may not be aware of in terms of the household benefits package and the fuel allowance, which we increased in budget 2026. A person who is in receipt of a pension and who qualifies for the living alone and fuel allowances also receives the telephone support, which is an extra €2.50 per week. We look again at the costs on a 2026 basis ahead of budget 2027. We have shown cause over the past number of years, and it will be looked at in the context of the budgetary allocation for 2027.
Sentiment score: 0.10
I will certainly take on board the Deputy's request. He is definitely in early but there were other Deputies even in ahead of him this morning for budget 2027 priorities. I will point out in the context of budget 2026, however, that €12 billion has been allocated for pension payments. Many people who are living alone are predominantly pensioners. That €12 billion is an increase of just over €700 million from the 2025 Revised Estimates. The investment in pensions, as we discussed at committee yesterday, is nearly 42% of the Department’s overall allocation. In terms of the choices we had to make, this year we went for a weekly increase in the overall pension rate and across all the weekly welfare payment rates. We increased the fuel allowance in the context of energy costs and the weekly rate of the fuel allowance. We also expanded the fuel allowance this year for the first time to working families. As I said, that kicks in from this week. We have made the changes. It is very focused on targeted areas. I hear the Deputy, however, and I hear him in the context of budget 2027. Perhaps he might have a good chat with our colleague, the Minister for public expenditure, in relation to that too.
Sentiment score: 0.17
I thank the Deputy. The Government recognises the significant additional costs that disabled people are facing in their daily lives. We are committed to improving outcomes for disabled people by reducing more permanent measures. The programme for Government includes a range of commitments to support disabled people, including a commitment to introducing a permanent annual cost-of-disability support payment. In addition, under the National Human Rights Strategy for Disabled People 2025-2030, which was developed with significant input from disability groups and advocates, it was agreed to establish a strategic focus network summit on the cost of disability. While this is led by my Department, it includes other Government Departments in what is a cross-government endeavour, as well as disabled people, their families, carers and advocates. I have asked my officials to prioritise this work. Subsequently, I launched a public consultation process on how a cost-of-disability payment can best be delivered. We launched it last Friday, and it will run until 7 April. As I said earlier to Deputy Hayes, I encourage maximum participation in this project across the House. I encourage any interested parties to visit gov.ie/cod, where they will find guidance on how to engage with the consultation in whatever format best suits them. We have already received some 80 submissions. Following on from that consultation, on 13 May, I will chair a cost-of-disability strategic focus network summit. The summit will provide a space for key stakeholders, such as disabled persons organisations and officials from across government, among others, to input into the design of a new cost-of-disability payment. It will provide a space for key stakeholders to identify ways that Departments and Government agencies can make changes to lower the cost of disability in the future. This whole-of-government approach is important - as we discussed earlier with Deputies Roche and Hayes - particularly as we know that addressing these costs is not simply a matter of providing income supports; we must also improve the delivery of and access to key services. Other supports continue to be available from and provided by my Department.
Sentiment score: 0.34
I want the consultation to be as broad as possible. As I outlined to Deputy Hayes earlier, we met the disability consultative forum in my Department yesterday around the consultation. We are open to further suggestions as to how to make it more accessible and to make people engage with it more. There is a guidance document to provoke discussion. We are open to people’s ideas in relation to this matter. We had some good feedback yesterday on what it should look like and on administration issues and assessment. We want to ensure that we have a proposal that is ready and that is shared as much as it can be. That is why we have the process. We will also have the consultative forum. As I stated yesterday, we will be inviting the Deputy, as Chair of the committee on social protection, and the Chair of the disability committee to the forum on 30 May. I will also be inviting spokespersons from the other parties to attend. It is important that what happens on that day will not constitute a box-ticking exercise. We are open to ideas on what form the day should take in order to make it an effective use of people’s time.
Sentiment score: 0.24
We have spoken extensively about the process this morning. I hope people engage with it. The Deputy is right that there are additional supports available through the community welfare system. Separately, I will be hosting a briefing next Wednesday in the audio visual room with community welfare officers to outline the supports available from our section. They will also be available in the coffee dock in Leinster House 2000 to meet Deputies who cannot make it to the audiovisual room. There has been a lot of feedback from Deputies on the community welfare system, its availability and what is involved. I would appreciate it if Deputies, Senators or members of their teams could engage with that process on the day so we can get that feedback on a structured basis. All of us will have feedback. We want to get as good a range of experience from around the country. With the Cathaoirleach Gníomhach’s forbearance, I will put a plug in for this event. It is important in relation to this issue and also many others in my Department as well.
Sentiment score: 0.27
We had a very extensive discussion on this earlier. I commend the education committee on the work it has done in respect of this matter. That work has been very considered and well thought out, and I look forward to the committee's report. As the Deputy said, the objective is to provide regular, nutritious food to children to support them in taking full advantage of their education. The programme is an important component to encourage school attendance, extra educational achievement and participation in school. Under the school meals programme, the primary relationship is between the school and supplier. My Department provides the funding for the meals directly to the school and it is the responsibility of each school board to administer the programme in their school, including handling the procurement process. I thank the school communities around the country that have made this happen in their schools. I recognise the extra pressure it puts on them. The schools procurement unit under the Department of education provides guidance to schools for all procurements including the school meals programme. Clear nutritional standards have been in place for the school meals programme since its inception. A specific standard was set for school meals under the nutritional standards for school meals and nutritional standards for hot school meals. A technical nutrition subgroup comprising dietitians from the following organisations was involved in developing these standards: the Irish Nutrition and Dietetic Institute of Ireland; the HSE; Safefood; and the Food Safety Authority of Ireland. These standards are publicly available on the gov.ie website. As we previously discussed, school meal suppliers were instructed to remove food that is high in saturated fat, sugar, and salt from September 2025. My Department has seconded a CORU-registered dietician for the school meals programme who is under the clinical supervision of the Department of Health. One of her first tasks was an in-depth review of school meal supplier menus and their compliance with the nutritional standards. That review is ongoing, and I hope to have s full report before the beginning of the summer. I am very focused on the school meals programme, that it offers the best nutrition. I absolutely agree with the Deputy on its importance. I reiterate that for many children it may be their only hot meal of the day.
Sentiment score: 0.24
By funding and appointing a dietician rather than listening to all sorts of opinions, we will obtain an informed opinion. The dietician’s first job was to look at a paper-based exercise and look at the menus. They are now getting out to schools with colleagues from the Department of social protection. They are also developing an auditing tool to allow the process to be more efficient and will allow us to get the nutritional standards. With all that information I will engage. I am happy enough that we are on the right path but there can be unintended consequences. On high salt and sugar content, we have had substantial feedback from parents whose children will only eat that for a range of reasons. I want to try to get as much in as possible so that we do not add to the distress of children by making what we think might be good decisions but which add to it. I will come back later to the point raised by Deputy O'Reilly around portion size.
Sentiment score: 0.17
Regarding Deputy Hayes's question first, the standards are available. They are published on gov.ie. I want to get a full understanding of that when I get the full report. I am not into naming and shaming. We will absolutely publish the full report and I look forward to discussing it not just at the social protection committee but also at the education committee. On Deputy O'Rourke's questions, the holiday meals school pilot this year was very important. We do that in partnership with the Department of education. I think something like 40,000 children have benefited from it and that was really important. It was particularly focused on what used to be known as the July provision and those who take part in that programme. I agree on that issue of the summer provision and that is something we will look at. As of now, we are focused on this programme. On where we came from in 2019, the then Minister, Regina Doherty MEP, followed by the then Minister, Heather Humphreys, drove it hard to get it into every primary school. We now have it open in most primary schools. There are some we are still working through. I want to bed it down and then start to fulfil the programme for Government commitment-----
Sentiment score: 0.16
-----around secondary schools as well. My focus now is to bed down those nutritional standards and ensure we have good compliance with those standards so a scheme as important as this is doing what it is designed to do in terms of nutrition and supporting education.
Sentiment score: 0.57
I thank the Deputy for this question. The Government acknowledges the very valuable role that family carers play and we are fully committed to supporting carers in that role. The commitment is recognised in the programme for Government and in budget changes for 2026 where the earnings limit for carer’s benefit will increase from €625 to €1,000 after tax from July, there will be a €10 increase in the weekly rate of carer’s benefit, and carer's benefit will be made available to the self-employed for the first time. As the Deputy said, carer's benefit is a payment made to ensure people who may be required to leave the workforce or reduce their working hours to care for a person in need of full-time care. It is payable for a period of up to two years for each care recipient and may be claimed in one go or over separate periods. There were 4,616 people in receipt of carer's benefit at the end of January 2026. Expenditure on the carer’s benefit scheme is estimated to exceed €76 million this year. To qualify for carer’s benefit, a person must meet the PRSI and other conditions of the scheme and have been in full-time employed for at least eight weeks in the previous 26 weeks. Another qualifying condition is that the applicant provides full-time care and attention of no less than 35 hours per week to a person in need of such care. The carer is allowed to work or engage in education and training for up to 18.5 hours a week. The 18.5-hour limit for carer's benefit reflects a careful balance between ensuring the care recipient receives full-time care but also enables carers to maintain a connection to employment, training, education or to other interests. Any proposal to amend the 18.5-hour limit would need to preserve that balance and would have to be considered in the broader budgetary and policy context.
Sentiment score: 0.56
I am happy to engage with the Deputy around the specific instances. Subsequently, we can examine those in more detail. As I said, we have made substantial increases to the means assessment and that will continue from 1 July this year. We have also increased the carer's benefit rate by €51 over the past five years. Previously, this was done by the then Minister, Heather Humphreys, and I have continued that. The changes in the income limits from €625, which started from July, will continue to increase in 2026. On the specific issue of teachers' hours and what is regarded as a full working week, I am happy to engage in that to see if that can be resolved. I look forward to hearing more details in the Deputy's next supplementary.
Sentiment score: 0.33
Certainly, we will engage on that. There are also issues being brought to my attention around teachers who are job-sharing and that complicate the Deputy's scenario even more. Those who are working fewer than 18.5 hours may qualify for carer's allowance, which would be subject to the means test and to other eligibility requirements. If the Deputy wants to send me the details, we will engage with him around it. Any changes to the carer's benefit or to the qualifying conditions in terms of hours or means obviously has other knock-on issues, so I do not want to give the Deputy a commitment without fully analysing the details. We will drill down into those details and will work with the Deputy's office on that.
Sentiment score: 0.26
The programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce pay-related parent's benefit and explore other payments where a similar model could be applied. Parent's benefit provides nine weeks paid leave to each parent during the first two years of a child’s life or following adoption. This leave can be taken in blocks of a minimum of one week up to a maximum of nine weeks. A pay-related model that moves away from flat rates of payment would provide a stronger financial cushion to new parents, as the Deputy has said, while reflecting the contributory and solidarity principles of the social insurance system. A pay-related model was introduced on 31 March 2025 for jobseeker’s benefit. My Department will draw on the learnings and operational experience from that to inform options for parent's benefit and other family leave schemes. In that context, I intend to issue a public consultation document on a pay-related approach to parents' benefit this autumn. That will help to inform decisions about other family and related benefits. I will invite the views of the public, employers, members of the House and stakeholders to support the process and to assist in the development of future proposals in this area. I look forward to working with the Deputy in that consultation and subsequent follow-on.
Sentiment score: 0.39
The Deputy has definitely outlined a very strong and fair case. That is why we have the programme for Government commitment and why I will be launching the consultation on this in autumn. We are certainly an outlier among EU member states in paying a flat rate for all family leave benefits. That needs to be looked at. However, we provide one of the most generous durations of maternity leave in terms of 26 paid weeks and 16 unpaid weeks. On the figures, the weekly rate has gone from €245 in 2019 to €299 in 2026. In 2023, there were 76,935 recipients of parent's benefit. In 2025, there were 93,671. This is definitely something we will engage on in the context of the consultation. We have a lot of work to do. We absolutely know that. I want to learn from the first year of operation of jobseeker's pay-related benefit and apply some of the lessons in that regard in order to inform how we design the consultation process in such a way that it will be both good and engaging.
Sentiment score: 0.35
I am in full agreement with the Deputy. She has made a very strong case. That is why we will start that consultation and begin work on addressing all of the issues she correctly outlined. They all stand up, and we have an awful lot of work to do in this space. That is why we have that commitment to introduce pay-related benefit for parents, which would address many of the challenges the Deputy highlighted as well
Sentiment score: 0.28
As the Deputy knows, the programme for Government contains a commitment to introduce the automatic enrolment, AE, retirement savings system. The aim of AE was to address the pension coverage gap that exists in Ireland and to provide workers with greater comfort and security regarding their retirement income. The new system, known as My Future Fund, commenced on 1 January. The administration fee associated with My Future Fund was prescribed in regulations, following consultation with the CEO of the National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA, and the Minister for Public Expenditure, Infrastructure, Public Service Reform and Digitalisation. The administration fee takes the form of a flat weekly fee rather than a commission based on a percentage of funds under management. We did this because the administration fee reflects the actual costs of administration, which do not vary with fund size, and will be the same for all participants regardless of their income or the size of their retirement fund. The standard pension industry practice is to charge a percentage fee based on the assets under management; the cost of this obviously increases significantly as a person's pension savings accumulate. In contrast, charging a flat fee will ultimately prove much better value for money for all the participants over the course of a standard retirement planning horizon. A fee equivalent to 55 cent per week will be charged each time contributions are paid to a participant's fund, up to a maximum of €28.60 per year. If a participant is not making contributions - for example, if they have opted out, suspended contributions, have joined an occupational pension scheme or are not currently receiving their pay - that administration fee will not be charged. As of 19 February, a total of €2,221,231 had been collected in administration fees. These fees are intended to cover the costs of NAERSA on an going basis.
Sentiment score: 0.12
The Deputy's assessment is an interesting one. In terms of getting this up and running, in the early stages we tried to bring as much clarity and understanding as possible in regard to the fee area. The feedback I have got in the past year in dealing with this is that a lot of people find administration fees and investment fees around pensions very confusing. It is one of the things that, certainly in my personal experience, would dissuade you from engaging with the pension provision. Therefore, we wanted the administration fee to be flat and to be accessible and understandable. Equally, we were able then to bring the prospect of the 700,000 plus workers, which we now know is 760,000, to bear in getting investment management fees, which were well under those applicable to an occupational pension scheme or to personal retirement savings accounts, PRSAs. On the age side, administration fees are higher in a lot of PRSAs than they are in My Future Fund. I am not totally aware of - and I am happy for the Deputy to send me information if he wishes - the progression of fees. Ultimately, all operational issues from My Future Fund are now going to be dealt with by National Automatic Enrolment Retirement Savings Authority, NAERSA. NAERSA has taken over operational responsibility, as we have launched. I want to make sure this is the best value possible and as accessible as possible so I am happy if the Deputy wants to share information with me on that.
Sentiment score: 0.31
Certainly, I am happy to look at the Deputy's information. A realistic assessment of administration fees would have to be done over the lifetime of their participation in My Future Fund. Incomes will, hopefully, change and that incomes will increase over the lifetime of their fund. One of the great advantages of My Future Fund is that it is portable and that people can bring it with them to their next employment, as they change employment. Particularly in this labour market, we are all going to be working in many different jobs. People can bring My Future Fund with them and, as incomes change and employment terms and conditions change, that fee will still remain the same. The best way of looking at the impact of the administration fee is not on a particular time of your income but over the lifetime of your personal My Future Fund growing. Certainly, I am happy to look at the information the Deputy has prepared. We will provide it to NAERSA. I stress NAERSA is independent in its operation and in its care of My Future Fund.
Sentiment score: 0.36